Seems the whole world has gone Portal mad this week. Artist Miles Donovan certainly has, coming up with these great schematic pieces showing how the guns actually work.
Or, how he thinks they work. It's not like Miles actually knows. Or he wouldn't be selling paintings on Etsy (including this one), he'd be, I don't know, touring the women's change rooms of the world, or trying to bring about world peace.
With two titles "completed" in Valve's play-for-an-early-release stunt with Portal 2, GLaDOS says we've only shaved about 90 minutes off the scheduled release of 7 a.m. Tuesday. Several sites calculate that the effort is much further ahead than that. Like, between 16 and 18 hours as of writing.
That means at this pace, everyone's beating their brains out playing indie games all weekend just to get Portal 2 to unlock in the middle of a workday - 3 p.m. Monday on the east coast, noon, on the west.
Has Portal 2 Launched Yet?
Portal 2 - GLaDOS Reboot Process
Calculated Prediction of Portal 2 Launch
Another Calculation of Portal 2's Release Time
Paying tribute to Portal, ulyssanov built himself this custom PC case based on the game that goes above and beyond mere tribute. One could almost say it was a...triumph.
I'M SORRY. SO SORRY.
Anyway, while completed two years ago this is the first most have seen of his exquisite work, which takes a fairly standard PC and turns it into something that wouldn't look out of place gathering dust somewhere on a desk in the corridors of Aperture Science.
You can see pictures of the PC being built here, while there's also a couple of videos showing off its fancy effects.
Aperture Science [Hard Forum, via Reddit]
Valve has released a sizeable Team Fortress 2 update, and for once, it's not all about hats.
It's actually about things that are useful. Like a new coaching mode, where you can jump online with someone who will teach you how to play. And a "new" map (a smaller version of Badlands). And a whole bunch of improvements to everything from the quality of voice communications to the game's bots. And three new classes (Demo, Engineer & Spy) have been added to TF2's training mode.
You can read the full changelog at the link below.
You think you've been waiting a long time for a new Half-Life game? You haven't, really. It's "only" been three and a half years. Now, Team Fortress 2, that was a game long in the making.
The staggered development of Valve's iconic shooter took so long, and went through so many twists and turns, that it serves as the very embodiment of the expression "Valve Time". As in, Valve will release a game when it's damn well ready, regardless of how many changes it has to go through and how long it takes.
A sequel to a hugely popular Team Fortress mod for Quake (which would later also be released as a Half-Life expansion), Team Fortress 2 was first announced all the way back in 1998, when Valve bought out TF Software Pty. Ltd, the creators of the mod. Team Fortress 2 was originally planned to ship as a Half-Life expansion towards the end of 1998.
It was delayed, however, and was not shown to the public for the first time until a year later. And couldn't be more different to the game we ended up with if it had tried. Going for a more "realistic" look than even the mildly sci-fi stylings of the original, Team Fortress 2 (subtitled "Brotherhood of Arms", and whose demo you can see up top) looked set to be a team-based shooter set in a near-future world that would feature large bases, an overall team commander, combat vehicles and even aerial drops.
A year later, however - in 2000 - the game went dark. Valve told press that it had been delayed again while the game was ported over to the company's new internally-developed engine, Source. And that would be the last anyone would hear of the game for over six years.
Half-Life 2 came and went, Half-Life 2: Episode One came and went, and still, the world knew nothing of the fate of Team Fortress 2. Despite protestations from Valve that the game was definitely being worked on, many began to believe the game was dead.
Yet as they should have learned from Half-Life 2, Valve likes to take its time. And when the game finally returned to the public eye in 2006, it was easy to see why it had been hidden for so long: it was an entirely different game!
About all that had remained from the original Team Fortress 2 pitch was the fact there were two teams fighting each other in a multiplayer match. Everything else had been changed. The vehicles were gone, the realism was gone, the serious tone was gone, the commanders were gone, the air drops were gone...all that was left were some maps, some guns and a handful of characters (which, in a cute touch, resemble the cast from the original mod).
So many changes had been made to the game, in fact, that Valve says it developed three or four entirely different titles during Team Fortress' gestation, which certainly would explain the long delay. One of these, which became known by the name "invasion", had elements leaked to the public when Half-Life 2's code was stolen ahead of that game's release, and suggested that one of the Team Fortress 2 versions in development during the six years of silence had included things like NPCs in multiplayer matches and references to the Half-Life universe.
Far from a retreat from the original vision, however, what we ended up with is one of the most enduring and iconic video games ever made, with a visual style and lovable cast of characters. Team Fortress 2 was eventually released in 2007 as part of Valve's Orange Box collection (and in 2008 as a standalone title), and is available for the PC, Mac, PS3 and Xbox 360 (though the latter two versions, sadly, are without the constant upgrades featured in the computer editions).
The Valve-owned domain aperturescience.com tossed up a countdown whose timer expires at noon EDT/9 a.m. PDT tomorrow. Rumors, abetted by Easter eggs, have hinted that the game is arriving a week ahead of its announced April 19 date. Hey, it's either that or Half Life 2: Episode 3.
Could Valve actually release Portal 2 ahead of schedule, forcing us to rethink the properties of the universal constant known as Valve Time? Because the developer of Bit.Trip Beat, one of the title participating in Valve's Potato Sack Pack offer and its associated alternate reality game, are hinting at that very thing.
Gaijin Games just updated Bit.Trip Beat via Steam with an all-new level "designed" by Portal antagonist GLaDOS, which you can see in action in the video above. Gaijin also sent the following message alongside that update:
Like the other 12 games in Valve's Potato Sack, it is rumored that playing BIT.TRIP BEAT between now and Portal 2's "scheduled" release date might increase the chances that Portal 2 is released early. Interesting idea...
That Portal 2 might arrive earlier than its officially announced April 19 release date was a theory first posed by the many gamers taking part in Valve's Potato Fool's Day ARG. The theory originated after a message hidden within a photo of a bathysphere was decoded into two parts.
i released 'kick it' ahead of schedule. that was a test. my goal is to emancipate something else early. but they're on to me. the system is on lockdown. i still have access to thirteen off-site chambers and am installing a test in each one. i am going to need a lot more test subjects to move forward. waiting and am expecting immediate compliance.
And this, with the time of Portal 2's presumed unlock time via Steam included:
4/19/2011_7AM=4/15/2011_9AM
Could the Potato Fool's Day ARG bear fruit in the form of early access to Portal 2 as soon as this Friday, April 15? Will only those who purchased the Potato Sack Pack bundle receive such access? Some Steam users are already reporting the pre-installation of the game, but we'll have to wait for a few more clues (or Friday morning) to come around before we know for sure...
The second part of Portal 2's digital comic, Lab Rat, is now live at IGN. The comic, which fills in some gaps between Portal and its sequel, shines new light on protagonist Chell and the mysterious Rat Man, and may have some clues for those partaking in Valve's ongoing ARG.
Portal star Chell is keeping things simple for the game's sequel. Same orange jumpsuit, it's just...rolled up. This concept art for the character shows she could have looked not just different, but a lot different.
Uncovered as part of Valve's vast, potato-based alternate reality game being run to promote Portal 2, the art shows Chell looking like an extra from Brazil, an extra from THX 1138 or a robo-legged runner from Mirror's Edge.
While they're interesting designs one and all, we're obviously glad Valve kept it simple for the final design. After all, two of their other most iconic female stars - Half-Life's Alyx and left 4 Dead's Zoey - get around in a hoodie and a track top respectively. No need to make things messy just for the sake of it!
There are also some great pics showing concepts for her trademark "chicken leg" stilts, as well as designs for the co-op mode's robot colleagues.
Lots of Portal 2 concept art [Super Punch]
To help the victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Team Fortress 2 developers Valve had a little hat sale. It started well. And has ended even better.
A total of $430,543.65 was raised by Team Fortress 2 players spending a bit of cash on some hats for their characters, which either says a lot about the size of TF2's player base, a lot about the appeal of hats or a lot about both.
There's also a lesson in this: developers, if you want PC gamers to stop pirating things and start spending money, don't sell them games. Sell them hats.
